The Crisis of German Philology: Aryan Philology and the Elimination of the Old Testament
Aryan philology exercised tremendous influence on the Nazi movement and the Third Reich. Its search for a non-Jewish or specifically Aryan Jesus was closely connected to the quest for the origins of the German people and creation of a new Germanic or Nord
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Erich Auerbach and the Crisis of German Philology The Humanist Tradition in Peril
Erich Auerbach and the Crisis of German Philology
Avihu Zakai
Erich Auerbach and the Crisis of German Philology The Humanist Tradition in Peril
Avihu Zakai Department of History The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel
ISBN 978-3-319-40957-3 ISBN 978-3-319-40958-0 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40958-0
(eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948202 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
For my four grandparents, who were murdered in the Holocaust, and my grandchildren, Ori, Rahm, and Mika, the joy of my life.
Preface
Philology itself, the branch of literary studies that most loudly cultivates distance from ideology and engagement with the most arcane details, might instead be an authentically— and repeatedly, in one strong voice after another—political activity. (María Rosa Menocal 1994, p. 99) The science which seeks, by interpreting documents, to determine what they held to be true is called philology. Thus philology is enlarged to mean what in Germany is called Geistesgeschichte, to include all historical disciplines, including the history of law and economic history. (Auerbach LLP, 115)
Erich Auerbach and the Crisis of German Philology analyzes Auerbach’s life and mind in the wide ideological, philological, and historical context of his time, especially the rise of Aryan philology and its eventual triumph with the Nazi Revolution or the Hitler Revolution in 1933 in Germany. It deals specifically with his struggle against the premises of Aryan philology, based on völkisch mysticism and Nazi historiography, which eliminated the Old Testament from German Kultur and Volksgeist in particular and Western culture and civilization in general, and led to his g
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